Gaming Getting an excellent Desktop, Need serious help

[Issac]

This is the one I have, and I recommend every part of it (maybe the graphics card is a matter of discussion and preferences):

http://www.student.itn.liu.se/~timla177/0%...rturbo%20gt.pdf

And the megahalems is to me the best cooler i've ever seen...

 

[Madridi]

Thanks for the detailed explanation

Best way to think of the standard JBOD is what happens when you put a bunch of external drives or USB flash devices (many different drive letters in windows) but instead they are inside your machine.
Also yes if you have it as such you can partition them however you want including kicking 10 gigs or so to the OS. Standard JBOD is what happens normally when you stick multiple drives in a machine, you will probably not have to switch anything in the BIOS to do it (it is probably for the best that it does as we normally suggest people only use RAID on identical model drives of the same age and amount of use which only really happens in cases like this or when you build for it).
Just to be clear, so once I stick the two drives in my machine, it will automatically be recognized as JBOD without changing anything from the BIOS?

QUOTE(FAST6191 @ Nov 30 2009, 05:47 PM) As JBOD is still effectively "stuck" with one disc unless you swap where things are located you are stuck at single drive speeds (probably nothing to be snorted at mind) compared to the "nearly" double speed from a RAID 0 setup (it will never reach double speed, probably more like 50% on a good day).

I'm not sure I understand the first part of this sentence, can you please elaborate?

Thanks again FAST6191

 

[FAST6191]

Yes JBOD is the standard arrangement. You might have to partition or otherwise format the drive but you appear to know about all that already.

You can not easily install windows across multiple partitions/drives meaning windows will effectively "run" from just one drive (which will probably be plenty fast enough though). Sure you can put program files or my documents or whatever on another drive but you are still running the core of it from just one drive.

RAID0 as mentioned effectively splits this at a hardware level meaning you gain the speed of two drives as they are working in parallel, it is never going reach this double speed though (slowdowns, spinups, "lag" at the RAID controller level, fragmentation and so on) but it will be higher than a single drive.

 

[todd72173]

For under $1500 -

Forget Raid setup - Just get two TB drives - Western Digital is the best. Seagate has alot of issues
Graphics Card - dont get top of line, dont get SLI. Just get one Vid Card. I wouldnt spend more than $250 on it
Power Supply - Very important! Get a name brand like OCZ or equivalent.
Monitor - very important too! The bigger the better. LCD atleast 22'' Wide Screen. Im using a no name brand V7 22'' got for under $200

 

[Madridi]

You can not easily install windows across multiple partitions/drives meaning windows will effectively "run" from just one drive (which will probably be plenty fast enough though).

err.. what?
cannot install windows across multiple partitions/drives, meaning windows will effectively run from one drive?
I dont get it..

am I safe to assume that if I partition 50gb or whatever for OS from one drive, while having whatever other partitions for anything else on both drives, that's the best way to do it?

Thanks again FAST6191. I appreciate your help

 

[FAST6191]

ÂÂÂÂ ------- Hard drive 1
ÂÂÂÂ |
PC----|
ÂÂÂÂ |
ÂÂÂÂ ------- Hard drive 2

(hopefully that appears OK)

Unless you use raid0 (which is not suggested for this scenario) windows will be on one drive (for the sake of this example I am using Hard drive 1)

Everything windows does will cause hard drive 1 to be accessed.

The electromechanical nature of hard drives means that trying to access several things at once from one drive means a fair bit of slowdown as the heads reposition.

As windows is always running hard drive 1 will always be being accessed, you can not easily change it so some necessary windows files files are on one drive and some more on the other in an attempt to dodge this or spread the load.

You can change the location of programs, documents, music and whatever else (in this case you would want them on hard drive 2) but given windows should not take more than about 10 gigabytes (probably more like 3) I am guessing while you can/will mainly use hard drive 2 for day to day stuff, installation folders and storage the time will come (and believe me it will) when you do not want to "lose"/ignore the 900 odd gigabytes not used on hard drive 1.

Granted windows will occasionally not need as much hard drive time but the small amount it does need will drag down everything else from time to time (for single hard drive computers this is a frequent source of slowdown in games or big videos: I am sure we have been there when an AV scan kicks in during the middle of something).

The same idea does apply to raid0 (perhaps even more so as it is effectively one drive) but it is/should be that much faster that any penalties for this sort of thing are reduced to the point where it does not matter without you having to think about what goes on what drive (not a difficult feat or one you will ever really have to engage in if you are not running raid0).

Partitions will help with fragmentation (a big part of the problem) but as the drive is still in the same physical package regardless of how many partitions you have the time penalty is still there.

 

[Madridi]

So from what I understood, I would want to use HDD2 for installations, downloads, and whatever else.. I COULD use HDD1 for that as well but it will have slower access time because the windows is running from that?

Assuming the above is correct, should I get a 3rd drive, for OS so that I wouldnt waste the 900GB left on HDD1 (unless I can tolerate slow access)?

Thanks again FAST6191

 

[FAST6191]

Yes use HDD2 for everyday stuff.
HDD1 would be slower but frankly you are probably used to a single drive machine as it is right now and the slowdown while measurable easily enough and causing problems on high end activities like serious game playing, video encoding and extensive file transfer/access is not going to trouble you.
Basically all you have to do is think a little bit when using the drive and you will not be troubled (most people I meet will nearly instinctively close all non essential programs when they are about to run a game or not copy files or otherwise thrash the drive as they are extracting an archive and so on and so on).

Third drive: This is why we had that discussion on solid state drives back at the start of the thread and this scenario we are now discussing is one of the big reasons why people go in for them. Not really worth it for this build at this point in time.
Maybe when you come to install the OS again after a year or so have a look then (small OS sized drives should be fairly inexpensive at that time too).

 

[Madridi]

Thanks for all your help FAST6191, your explanations helped me understand and visualise everything

I'll be back when I receive all the parts from my friend in the US (within three weeks or so), either to report how everything is going, or to ask questions if something comes up

@todd72173: sorry I missed your post. Problem is, I already bought the parts. Appreciate the effort though

 

[Madridi]

err..
I might change my video card cause its out of stock and my friend is coming back from the US on the 15th.

Any suggestions?

 

[Madridi]

Anyone?
I have to get it by tomorrow MAX

 

[Cermage]

if you want highest end... go for the gtx295. you should still be able to get them somewhere if they aren't still bought out by that folding dude.

 

[Joe88]

buying a high end gtx295 is very stupid right now considering the gtx300 series are right around the corner and the price will plummet dramatically of the old series

not mention the 5870 which is almost the exact same performance cost about $120 less
imo if you need something now, there should be some 5850's left in stock
5850 is about 10% less performance then the 5870, and beats the GTX285 fine and can be had for about $299

 

[Cermage]

buying a high end gtx295 is very stupid right now considering the gtx300 series are right around the corner and the price will plummet dramatically of the old series

well they're expected late q1 2010 im pretty sure, so its still a month or two off unless you intend to get the 310 or something.

 

[Madridi]

Well I agree that there is no point of getting the gtx295 now, especially since their prices are are raised to around $550 for some reason.

5870 is my second choice but it's out of stock on amazon and newegg.

Now it's an issue between the 5850 and the 5770, I'm leaning towards the second one purely because of it's price (about $175).

I've read a review on the following link but I'm not sure whether they are actually saying that it's good or not lol
http://alienbabeltech.com/main/?p=12474

so unless someone tells me that the 5770 is a bad choice, I'm gonna order that

Edit: Apparently the 5850 is out of stock on both sites as well. So now it's a question of whether I should get the 5770 or switch to a completly different card

 

[Santee]

Since it seems you want performance just get 2 5770s.

 

[Madridi]

the 5770 is gonna be a one year temporary solution *most likely*